Lemon-Raspberry Wedding Cake

A wedding cake with with a light lemon mousse filling and fresh raspberries. Requires refrigeration.

My husband’s cousin wanted a summery wedding cake with lemon and raspberry. I found a recipe from Epicurious here and it was delicious. The changes we made: added frozen blueberries to the batter, used a white chocolate ganache to go under the fondant, and stabilized the mousse filling with gelatin.

This wedding cake recipe from Bon Appetit was dense enough cake for a wedding cake. It isn’t a delicate, fluffy cake as it has to be able to support a raspberry mousse filling, ganache outside, and fondant. People said it was the best cake they had ever had. While the original recipe called for 3″ pans, I had trouble getting the cake to cook fully in a 3″ pan, so I went with 2″ pans.

I went to the Ghiradelli Chocolate outlet to get white chocolate baking bars for my white chocolate ganache. Some of the things I learned about white chocolate ganache:

White Chocolate Ganache Tips

White chocolate ganache should be either 3.5:1 to 4:1. The 3:1 was difficult to get to the right consistency – too soft unless you refrigerate and then it goes hard too fast.

White chocolate ganache using commercial white chocolate is really too sweet to use as a cake covering. If I were to use white chocolate again, I’d try and make my own with much less sugar.

White chocolate ganache wants to split and have the oils come out. You can recombine the oil back in by warming up some whole milk and dribbling a little in and wisking the ganache back until it re-emulsifies.

It takes a LOT of ganache which is expensive. This cake has 10 lbs of white chocolate as the filling dams and an outer layer. Even then I ran out a little. It would have helped to have another 1-2 lbs.

I’m not a fan of the upside down cake ganaching method because I was working with large layers and delicate filling, so I just used that method – but right side up.

Fondant

I used Jennifer Dontz’s fondant recipe – where the recipe calls for a mixing of Merken’s Super White with Pettinice fondant. It was a tad sweet, but I couldn’t tell if it was the white chocolate overpowering it all. I can say that the fondant seemed more forgiving than straight fondant. I didn’t have any drying or cracking problems, and it was easy to roll out and cover even the big 14″ layer.

Refrigerating Fondant and Preventing Sweating

I had to refrigerate the cake due to the filling used, but discovered moisture condensed on the fondant when it came out of the refrigerator. I discovered that the secret to eliminating sweating fondant is to lightly wrap the fondant covered cake with plastic wrap in the refrigerator and when you take it out, leave the wrap on until the cake comes to environmental equilibrium. The sweating will occur on the plastic wrap and you can safely unwrap the cake and not have sweating on the fondant.

Lemon and Fresh Raspberry Wedding Cake Recipe

Lemon and Fresh Raspberry Wedding Cake RecipeYosaphinaApril 24, 2015

Lemon cake with a light lemon-raspberry mousse filling - requires a serious frosting/ganache filling dam to hold up for weddings. Must be refrigerated if made overnight.

Instructions

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°F. Butter bottom of 12-inch-diameter cheesecake pan(not springform) with 3-inch-high sides and removable bottom. Line bottom of
pans with parchment paper. (I used normal 2" high Parish Magic Line cake pans)

Beat eggs, sugar, and oil in large bowl of heavy-duty mixer and medium-low speed 5 minutes. Increase speed to medium and beat until mixture is very thick and falls in heavy ribbon when beater is lifted, about 5 minutes.

Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into large bowl. Sift dry ingredients over batter in 5 additions, whisking to blend after each addition.

Transfer about 11 cups batter to 12-inch prepared pan and about 5 cups batter to 8-inch prepared pan (batter should be of equal depth in both pans). If using 2" pans, fill to half full.

Bake cakes until golden brown in firm (tops may crack) and tester inserted into center comes out clean, rotating pans occasionally for even baking and covering loosely with foil if browning too quickly; about 1 hour 30 minutes. Transfer to racks; cool completely. Time for baking will be less for 2" pans.

Whisk eggs to blend in medium bowl.

Combine butter, 1 1/4 cups sugar, lemon juice, and peel in heavy medium saucepan. Stir over medium heat until butter melts, sugar dissolves and mixture comes to a boil. Gradually whisk lemon mixture into eggs, being careful not to curdle the eggs. Return to same pan. Stir over medium heat until curd thickens and just begins to bubble, about 3 minutes. Add in gelatin and mix in thoroughly.

Strain curd into large bowl. Cover surface with plastic wrap to avoid skin on the custard. Chill until cold and thick, stirring occasionally, about 4 hours.

Beat cream and 6 tablespoons sugar in medium bowl until firm peaks form. Stabilize with some additional melted gelatin while you whip if you need extra assurance. Fold whipped cream into curd in 4 additions. Chill filling until very cold, about 2 hours.